


Implied Odds

by orphan_account



Category: Law & Order: SVU
Genre: A Sticky Situation, But Enough Smut to Warrant An E, Episode: s16e16 December Solstice, Go Team Rafioli, Humor, Mild Smut, Rafioli Fic Exchange, Strip Poker, Super glue
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-30
Updated: 2019-04-30
Packaged: 2020-02-10 02:52:56
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,824
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18651430
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: My assigned prompt: "Liv and Barba get stuck together (physically) and have to spend the day like that and/or end up needing professional help to separate themselves."What I did with that prompt: Thanks to an impromptu game of strip poker the night before, Rafael Barba must attend his grandmother's funeral with his right hand glued to Olivia Benson's left breast.





	Implied Odds

“Go home,” Lucia Barba told her son after the last guest left the funeral home in Westchester where his grandmother had been laid out for her wake.

Barba hugged his mother for the hundredth time that day. “You’ll be all right?” he asked.

“Yes. Monica’s driving me home. Get some rest, and I’ll see you back here in the morning.”

They’d held a two-day wake for Catalina Diaz, for the friends and remnant family still around after so many decades, and were readying themselves for the funeral the next day. Barba still blamed himself for not pushing hard enough to get her to agree to live in an assisted living facility. Neither the mother nor the son had slept much in the last 72 hours.

While he was waiting for a few-and-far-between MetroNorth train back to Manhattan, a text message came in from Olivia Benson: _How are you doing?_

He smiled at the screen. _Holding up,_ he wrote.

_Are you at your mother’s place tonight?_

_No, she told me to go home._

_You want to come over for a nightcap? I was gifted some good scotch. You’ll probably appreciate it more than I will._

Olivia Benson, the woman he hoped to be squabbling with at 85, a personal relationship that would likely never go further than squabbling because of their professional relationship, was inviting him over at 9 o’clock at night — when he wouldn’t get to her place until after 10 — for a nightcap, for “good scotch”? He was intrigued.

A little too intrigued for what had been an exhausting, sad week. 

_I’m always up for good scotch,_ he answered.

That was how he found himself at Benson’s door, coat opened, tie loosened, on the eve of his grandmother’s funeral. 

She opened the door and threw her arms around him, drawing him into an embrace.

She’d had a rough week too, ever since she’d leaned the identity of Noah’s biological father. Barba hoped she’d keep that information to herself and not disclose it to Trevor Langan or in front of a family court judge. Noah didn’t need to know that Johnny D was his father, not now when he was a toddler, not when he got older, not ever.

“Come on,” she said, leading him towards the kitchen counter.

He shrugged off his coat and hung it on a hook near the door, then followed her the rest of the way. On the counter was a bottle of 24-year-old scotch and two tumblers.

“Who’s so in love with you that they gave you a bottle of 24-year-old scotch?” he asked.

She raised her eyebrows and poured the amber liquid into the tumblers. “I’m letting that one go on account of grief,” she said, half-teasing.

He licked his lower lip, then brought the glass to his mouth.

“You always lick your lip before you drink.”

Now it was his turn to raise his eyebrows. “Do I?”

“Rollins also pointed out once that you always lick food before you eat it, and now I can’t unsee that.”

He sipped the scotch and relished the smoky taste, the warmth in his throat and belly.

“It’s like someone stuck a lit candle up my nostrils,” Benson complained.

“You’ve got to be kidding. You’re drinking what’s probably a three hundred dollar scotch here. From somebody who knows her way around good red wines —”

“Good red wines are _smooth_.”

“So is this,” he said, raising his glass.

“That’s why I said you’d appreciate it more than I would.”

“Did it come from someone I don’t like?”

“That’s for me to know and you to never find out.”

They spent the next ten or fifteen minutes talking about his grandmother, skirting darker family issues, and as he reached the bottom of his glass, his cheeks and forehead started to burn. He removed his suit jacket, then his tie, leaving just his vest and shirt, unbuttoned to the third button, revealing a section of white undershirt. 

When he toed out of his shoes, Benson laughed.

“What?” he asked.

“The scotch is making you slowly strip.”

“If we really want mistrials on the Bauer and Russo cases, I’m happy to slowly strip for you.” He reached for the bottle, pouring himself just a bit more, and Benson filled a wine glass for herself. “Sorry. That was inappropriate.”

“I’m the one who said you were slowly stripping. I think we both need the distraction.”

“Of stripping?” he said, sputtering out some of the scotch he’d just sipped.

“If you think this is inappropriate, we’ll shut it down immediately,” she said, opening a drawer beneath the counter. She removed a deck of cards and held it up. “You’ve got a long, sad day ahead of you tomorrow. You look like you haven’t slept in a while, like you need a distraction. Have you ever played strip poker?”

“Olivia Benson, I hardly know you.”

“I’m always here to distract my friends when they need distraction.” She took a drink of wine and smiled across the counter at him, then covered his hand with her own. “I care about you.”

“If you want those mistrials to happen —”

“I want you to become a judge so you and I can —” She slid her fingers across his forearm where he’d rolled up his sleeve. “So we can explore more of our friendship.”

“Are you telling me we’re on the same page.”

“I’m telling you that you look like you need a game of strip poker.”

“I’ll bet you play strip poker with all the ADAs,” he teased.

“Wouldn’t you like to know,” she said, rounding the counter to get to the living room couch, where she plopped herself down and threw the deck of cards on the coffee table.

He followed her, grabbing his tie and jacket.

“Not fair,” she said, “you can’t put on clothing you’ve already taken off. And besides, you’re wearing a lot more clothing than I am.” She was wearing pajama pants, a T-shirt, and slipper socks. There was almost certainly a bra under the T-shirt, but he wondered what was underneath the pajama pants. 

A whole lot of mistrials were under those pajama pants. 

But she was right: he needed a distraction. So did she.

“Five card draw, basic rules,” she said, shuffling the cards and dealing from the top of the deck.

On the first round, he turned up a full house and she removed one of her slipper socks. She won the second round with three of a kind. He immediately went for the button of his pants and she unexpectedly burst into peals of laughter that she had to suppress so as not to wake up the toddler sleeping down the hall. He removed his vest instead, ceremoniously tossing it in her direction.

By the tenth round, neither of them was wearing socks, and Barba wore only his undershirt, trousers — with suspenders draped down at this sides — and underwear. Benson had removed her pajama pants, but her long shirt still covered most of the skin down to just below her knees. They were both sitting on the floor, legs under the coffee table, clothes on the couch above them.

On round 11, he drew four of a kind, four 9’s, right out of the gate. “O-livia,” he breathed. “You don’t by any chance have a royal flush, do you?”

“What hand do you have there?”

He laid his cards down on the table and smirked in her direction.

“I told you it wasn’t fair, I started with fewer clothes than you,” she protested.

“If you don’t want to play anymore, we’ll stop. Our friendship doesn’t need to go _that_ far.”

But she was smirking too, and she lifted her shirt over her head, leaving her in only a bra and underwear.

He breathed in sharply through his nose.

“What do house rules say about me telling you how good you look?” he asked.

“House rules allow it.”

He slid a few inches closer to her.

“You’ve got to forfeit the next round if you want to kiss me,” she said. “I play strip poker to win.”

He shucked off his undershirt.

“There,” he said. “Now we have two pieces of clothing each.”

“You’ve got the —” she said, wiggling her fingers in the direction of the gold crucifix he wore on a chain around his neck, one that was usually only visible when he wasn’t wearing an undershirt. “But obviously —”

He smiled broadly. “It’s okay, Liv,” he said, holding her head in his hands and leaning in for a sweet, gentle kiss.

“Don’t talk about my mother nowww,” he whined, throwing his head back, leading to another minute of laughter between the friends. 

She kissed him again, open-mouthed and wet this time, and again, and again. He slid a hand down slowly, tentatively, until it reached the smooth band of her underwear.

“When you lose the last round,” he said, a little breathless now, “I want to take these off with my teeth.”

“I like your sense of competition.” She flung a leg over him so she was straddling his lap and kissed the hollow of his throat. “I like this too,” she added, grinding against him.

“Olivia,” he whispered.

“But,” she said, sitting back down on the floor, one hand skimming her own thigh in what must have been an act of great restraint, “we need to finish the game.”

“You’re beautiful,” he said.

“You’re going to lose your pants.”

And indeed, in round 12, he did.

“Hmm,” she said as he stood, stepped out of his trousers, discarded them on the couch, and sat down again, “now I understand why you walk with that swagger in the courtroom.”

Benson reshuffled the deck and dealt them each five more cards. They both drew three more a piece. “Aces and Kings,” Barba said, slamming his cards down on the coffee table, “read ‘em and weep, I believe the professionals say.”

“Well, then, I seem to have lost,” Benson said, sliding a bra strap down her shoulder, “except, I have Aces and Kings too.”

“You’re kidding.”

She showed him her cards. It was a complete draw: they both had exactly the same hand, two Aces, two Kings, and a three.

“Does this mean we both win, or we both lose?” Barba asked. He hoped they could go another round, because he really wanted to remove her underwear with his teeth as he’d promised. Then again, she was already shifting uncomfortably, so if he asked her if he could remove her underwear with his teeth right then, she’d probably climb up on the couch and tell him to go ahead.

But she was dealing more cards.

Another round.

She left her bra strap hanging off her shoulder so that the cup drooped just enough to reveal a hint of pink beneath the curve of her breast. He leaned back on his right hand, sliding it under the couch, grateful for whatever the result of the next round of poker was.

With his left hand, he flipped over his cards to find three 4s. The fourth 4 didn’t turn up on the draw, but Benson had nothing, not even a pair.

“Would you like to do the honors?” she asked.

“Yes,” he said, getting up on his knees. His plan was to sensuously slide the strap down further and cover her shoulder and collarbone with kisses, but his knees countered that plan, throwing him forward instead. He reflexively reached out a hand to steady himself and quickly wound up with his fingers on the exposed skin of her breast, the heel of his hand on top of her bra cup.

“Ow!”

“Wait, sorry, I —”

“Ow!”

“I’m —“

“Oh my God,” she said, “Rafa, stop, stop, where was your hand just now?”

“What do you mean?”

“Stop trying to move your hand! It’s stuck! It stings. Rafa, _where was your hand_ when we were playing that last round?”

“Uh …” He went to move again, earning another shout and wince from her. “Under the couch, by the leg, I think.”

“Oh my God,” she repeated, gingerly crawling across his lap. “The glue.”

“What,” he said flatly.

“A piece came off the couch, something underneath it, and I was fixing it after I put Noah to bed because I didn’t want him to get into the superglue, and it must have —” She leaned in closer, and he placed his hands on her hips to steady her. “It spilled under the couch. Shit. _Shit._.”

“Okay,” Barba said, thinking on his feet, “if we sit together and I put my left arm around your waist, we can stand. Then we’ll find something to pick up the package with, and figure out how to dissolve the glue.”

“I’m sorry,” Benson said. “Your face when your mother called you the other day was so heartbreaking, I just wanted to distract you for the night, put a little smile on your lips.”

“You did. Come on. One, two … three!”

They stood up together and hobbled to get a towel from the linen closet. With his left arm around her, they were able to remain fairly steady. Back at the couch, Benson knelt down, necessarily taking Barba and his right hand with her, and used the towel to pick up the tube of glue, which had leaked a puddle under the couch. “There’s a hotline,” she said.

“It’s after 11. There’s no way they’re open.”

“It says 24 hours.”

“I feel for whoever works at the 24-hour superglue hotline.”

They struggled to their feet. Benson called the 24-hour superglue hotline, where a customer service representative greeted them with “Thank you for calling the Crackpot Brand Glue Hotline. How can I help you this evening?”

“I, uh, my friend accidentally glued his hand to …” She looked down at all five of Barba’s fingers stuck to her breast. “My arm.”

“You’ll need to go to the emergency room.”

“The emergency room!” she said, and Barba was so surprised that he pulled back, earning a “Rafa, no, don’t move!” from her, followed by a “fuck, ow, fuck, it hurts.”

He wrapped his other arm around her back, rubbing up and down in a futile attempt to soothe her pain. 

“Yes, Ma’am, Crackpot Glue takes a week to ten days to break down on its own, and only an emergency medicine professional can —”

“What about urgent care? We can go to urgent care in the morning. I don’t have anyone to watch my son, it’s the middle of the night.”

“Ma’am, only hospitals and emergency centers generally carry the —”

“Can it wait until tomorrow?”

“Yes, but you need to be very careful. We recommend that people in your situation seek emergency medical care because of the risk of tearing off layers of skin.”

“Thanks. Okay.”

She hung up the phone and looked at Barba. “We’ve got a problem.”

“Tell me about it,” he said, accidentally squeezing her breast when he tried to express his own exasperation. “Sorry.”

“The only way to dissolve the glue is to have an “emergency medicine professional” separate us.”

“The ER? During flu season?” Barba said, horrified.

“That’s not the worst of our troubles. Lucy’s in New Jersey with friends tonight — she asked me about the safest route back at two o’clock in the morning — and Rollins is out of town until Monday, and there’s no one else I can trust with” — she pointed back and forth between them — “this information. I can probably get Lucy to come in the morning if I pay her double, but —”

“The funeral mass is at 10, in Westchester.”

“Damn it.”

He pressed his forehead to hers and closed his eyes, swallowing hard. “Serves me right, I suppose.”

“For fooling around with me the night before your grandmother’s funeral?”

He kissed her lips. “What are we going to do?”

“It’s not like our legs are glued together. We can … we can throw a shawl around ourselves and go to the funeral. I’ll text Lucy now.”

“I think it’s going to be painfully obvious no matter what we do that my hand is glued to your breast.”

“We have two options. We can either go to the hospital in the morning and skip your grandmother’s funeral, which is absolutely fine, or we can go to your grandmother’s funeral together, with a shawl around us. Which option is less likely to incur wrath?”

“Less likely,” he said, wrinkling his nose.

“If they’re equally likely to incur wrath, then we’re better off going, because —”

“Because Abuelita would have wanted me to go to her funeral with my hand glued to a police sergeant’s breast?” He shook his head, then let out a long _hmmm_. “I’m not sure how much I believe in the afterlife, but I can’t help but think this is Abuelita telling me it’s time to apply for a judicial appointment.”

“You should.”

“I have … reasons … for my hesitation. If you’re uncomfortable going tomorrow, you don’t have to go.”

“I wouldn’t want to make you miss your grandmother’s funeral,” she said.

“I wouldn’t want to subject you to ridicule.”

“Rafa,” she whispered, “you’ll be ridiculed more.”

When his tongue darted out to nervously lick his lips for the millionth time, she kissed him. “I’m here for you,” she promised. “Just please, _please_ , don’t forget to keep your hand steady, and whatever you do, _don’t pull_.”

“All right,” he said. “We’ll go tomorrow, hope Mami doesn’t entirely lose her shit — she’d have every right to — and then afterwards, we’ll go to the hospital and get …detached.”

“Let’s go to bed,” she suggested. When he appeared stricken, she said, “What other option do we have? I’m setting my alarm for 5. We’ll need some time to figure out how to get dressed.”

The only way they could lie in bed comfortably was for Benson to be flat on her back, with Barba on his side, his body half draped over hers. They didn’t bother with clothes, or pajamas; clothing would be a challenge to work out in the morning.

“You’re not going to be able to put on a shirt,” Benson said.

“You don’t think I’ve already figured that out?”

“No need to get cranky.” She turned her head to look at him. “In the future, no strip poker, no making out before funerals.”

He tried to laugh and tipped his head to kiss her shoulder. 

“Hey, Rafa?”

“Yes?” 

“What did you mean before when you said you had reasons for your hesitation on applying for a judicial appointment?”

He closed his eyes. “Not now, please,” he begged.

“All right.” She nudged him with her thigh. “Are you still —?”

“A little,” he said. “A lot.”

“Do you want me to —?”

“My other arm is pinned under me no matter what I do. I can’t … reciprocate.”

“I understand.” She let her fingers tickle his stomach, tracing a path down to the bunched-up waistband of his boxer shorts, and he let out a small _oh_.

“That feels good,” he said, “but my mind is racing trying to figure out how we’re going to show up like this at my grandmother’s funeral tomorrow, so I don’t think I’m going to be able to get where I need to get.”

She rolled slightly and kissed his cheek. 

“I paid off a witness,” he said suddenly.

“What?”

“Not really, but it looks that way. Five years ago, in Brooklyn, we had a really bad guy out on the streets, Liv, and the only woman who could put him away was an addict. She asked me for a loan. I gave it to her. She testified, put the guy away for life, but she died the next day of an overdose. I still send her mother and daughter a little rent money every month so the daughter doesn’t have to drop out of school.” 

“And no one knows about this?” she asked.

“No. I’ll have to disclose to McCoy and the bar association before I apply for a judicial appointment. I’ve spoken to a few attorneys who said I won’t get disbarred, but I may not make the list. I may never be a judge.”

“But you should try.”

“I know,” he said.

“It’s what your grandmother would have wanted.”

“To be entirely honest, I don’t want the bar association or the governor or the state senate to tell me I’ll never be on the bench. At least if I don’t try I can hold out false hope.”

“Rafa,” she said, turning on her side so she could smooth his cheek with the back of her hand.

“She always believed I’d be a —”

“Ow ow ow!”

“What?” he said, drawing his right hand away, forgetting that his right hand had nowhere to go.

“Do not move your hand.”

“Sorry, sorry, Liv, I can’t —”

“No, it’s fine, let’s just try to sleep and figure this out in the morning.” 

—

She woke up with his cheek on her shoulder, the full weight of his head bearing down, but her police instincts warned her not to move just yet. She covered his right hand with hers so that he couldn’t jerk it away from her breast, and then said, “Rafa, wake up, your head is on my shoulder, I can’t feel my right arm.”

When he went to move his hand, she held it down.

He blinked drowsily and lifted his head. “I don’t want to hurt you,” he mumbled.

“You won’t.”

“I already have. I keep trying to move my hand without thinking.”

“Lucy texted me at three in the morning to let me know she’s coming at 7. I hope you don’t mind that I texted her a … um, tasteful-ish … picture to show her how dire the situation is.”

“As long as she’s not planning to post it on Instagram.”

“Okay,” Benson said, “I’m going to get out of bed. You follow me, and stay close.”

“I don’t have much of a choice but to stay close.”

“I mean don’t pull your hand away.”

He obliged, but when she swung her legs off the bed and planted them on the floor, she sent Barba sliding down onto his ass.

“Are you okay? Did I rip —”

“No,” she said, catching her breath, “I threw myself down with you as soon as I saw you go. Police academy 101.”

With his free hand, he gently stroked her hair. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m hurting you.”

“This is my fault.”

“I’m the one who stuck my hand in a puddle of glue.”

“Can you get on your knees?” she asked. “We can probably get up that way.”

Benson managed to get the two of them to their feet, and together, they hobbled towards Noah’s room, thanked all of the superglue gods that he was asleep, grabbed a pair of towels, and headed for the shower.

“We’re going to shower … together?”

“I don’t think we have a choice,” she said, laughing. “Let’s see if I can get this bra off.”

He’d pushed part of the cup down the night before, so she was able to slide the bra off her body and under his hand fairly easily. She pulled her underwear down and tossed them in the hamper.

“I don’t have spare underwear,” Barba complained.

“Your options are to wear these again,” she said, tugging at his boxers, “or nothing, or wear a pair of mine.”

He pretended to contemplate all three options.

She had to help him out of his underwear because she was the only one of them with two free hands. For that reason, she was also the only one of them who could wash his hair.

While her hands were in his scalp, he looked at her with puppy-dog eyes and she let out a breathless laugh. “I feel like something’s between us,” she commented, eliciting a louder chortle from him.

“This would be hot,” he said, popping the _t_ , “if only super glue weren’t involved, and if we weren’t going to a funeral.”

“When we’re separated, you can do what you said you wanted to do last night,” she promised him as he leaned his head back under the shower to rinse away the shampoo, her shampoo.

“What’s that?” he asked, lifting his head to look at her again.

She touched the side of his face. “You can take my underwear off with your teeth.”

He let out a groan. “I wish I wasn’t glued to you right now.”

“Same here. But we’ll deal with it. We’ve dealt with worse.”

At 6, Noah woke up and called for his mother. They were still wrapped in towels when Benson reached over crosswise, picked him up, and placed him immediately on the floor.

“Kids under two don’t remember anything, right?” Barba asked nervously.

“I think so.”

“He won’t be teasing us or telling a therapist about this when he’s 16?”

“When he’s 16?” Benson said.

“Oh. I didn’t mean to —”

“Will you still be squabbling with me when Noah’s 16?”

“As long as I’m not still glued to you.”

They quickly figured out that Barba would not be able to get both his arms into his dress shirt and suit jacket, so they buttoned the shirt up to his underarm, then slipped the suit jacket over his shoulders to cover his bare right arm. “You’ve done intensive undercover work,” Barba said. “Is there any story we could possibly make up to explain this?”

“Absolutely not.”

“You’re sure?”

“I worked undercover for months investigating a dangerous eco-terrorist group under an assumed identity. I am an expert. There is no believable cover story we can possibly invent here.”

Benson was more successful in getting dressed. She was able to pull the cup of her bra over the bottom curve of her left breast, and was able to get both sleeves of a dress blouse on. She was only able to button the blouse to her bra line, but was slightly more suitably dressed for a funeral than her counterpart.

“She’s being cremated,” Barba said. 

“What?”

“My grandmother. She’s being cremated, so there won’t be a burial off-site. We can go right from the funeral home to the hospital.”

Lucy arrived at 7. “Someday,” Benson said, “I am going to write you a letter of recommendation praising your discretion.”

“A friend of mine once glued her thumb to her middle finger,” Lucy offered. “I mean, it’s not nearly as bad as this, but — let me know when you’re on your way back from the hospital. Good luck.”

Lucy assisted them in getting a gray pashmina shawl over their shoulders. “You guys are going to be cold,” she commented. 

“We have no other choice,” Barba said resignedly.

“The punishment fits the crime,” Benson added under her breath.

—

“You think people are staring at us?” Barba asked as they huddled together on the underground platform at Grand Central Station.

“There are beer carts all over this station,” Benson said. “Everyone here has seen worse, guaranteed. And besides, it looks like we’re just huddling together for warmth. Like you’re my son and I’m trying to keep you warm.”

“Like I’m your son,” he echoed, rolling his eyes. “I feel very underdressed with my sleeves and half my jacket hanging down. What if a transit cop sees me with my hand on your chest and arrests us for indecent exposure?”

“First of all, we are under the shawl,” she said, a bit of exasperation in her voice that she tried to suppress, because they were heading to Barba’s grandmother’s funeral for God’s sake, to a beloved 85-year-old woman’s funeral with Barba’s giant who-has-hands-like-that hand superglued to her boob, “and second, I’m an NYPD sergeant and I don’t think any transit cop wants to try to explain this to my boss.”

Barba nodded and looked down the track to see the lights of the New Haven line shining in the tunnel.

“Third,” she continued over the sound of the rumbling train, “indecent exposure, indecent whatever, isn’t an arrestable offense in this city anymore. You of all people should know that.”

“At the moment, I know nothing,” he said.

The 35-minute train ride was bearable, though a conductor looked at them sideways when she came to collect their tickets. They were huddled together across two seats, Barba necessarily facing the window because of where his hand was stuck. When they were one station before their destination, Barba called his mother to ask her to meet them outside.

“What’s wrong?” Lucia asked.

“Everyone is fine, but I have Sergeant Benson with me as a guest, and we just need to … see you … before the mass starts, all right?”

“You’ve got me worried.”

“Todo esta bien, pero I apologize in advance for how I’m about to embarrass you.”

Lucia was waiting for them in the funeral home’s parking lot, next to the car that Barba had helped her put a down payment on so she could shop and travel to points north without having to rely on friends, rentals, or spotty MetroNorth service, when they hobbled from the train station two blocks down, struggling to keep in step with one another. Her expression, previously clouded with grief, shifted to one of epic confusion when she saw them.

“Mami,” he said tentatively.

With lowered eyebrows and twisted lips, Lucia came a few steps closer. “Raf, are you —”

“Is my right hand superglued to the left side of Sergeant Benson’s chest? Yes.”

“That would not have been my first question.”

“The only way to remove Rafael’s hand is to go to the hospital,” Benson started to explain, “but —”

“They have to remove his whole hand?” Lucia exclaimed.

“No, no,” Barba said, “to remove my hand from — her breast — an emergency medicine specialist has to do it so the skin doesn’t tear.”

“I’m not going to ask how this happened,” Lucia said.

“We couldn’t go to the hospital last night because there was no one to watch my son,” Benson told her.

“This happened last night?”

“You told me to go home,” Barba said.

“To get some rest, not to get some —”

“Mami!”

“Are you … how much clothing do you have on under there?”

“A lot more than we thought we could get on. Liv’s blouse is almost entirely buttoned up and I’m wearing my dress shirt and suit jacket with one arm sticking out.”

Lucia’s eyes were wide. “I don’t know what Abuelita would have said about this. Let’s go in. You sit in the back, I’ll — I don’t know what story to tell todos los viejos, Rafi, you —”

Barba reached over with his free hand and rubbed his mother’s arm. “You don’t have to tell them anything. I will take the embarrassment fully on myself. Let los viejos think I’m an idiot.”

Lucia blinked back tears and smiled at them. “From the way you talked about her, for the last, what, two years, I knew. _I knew._ ”

“Actually, last night was the first —”

“Rafael!” Lucia and Benson shouted together.

The five or six people they walked past on their way to a pew in the back row of the chapel were kind enough to simply smile and nod and offer their condolences. When they sat, however, the woman in front of them turned around.

“Rafael?” she said loudly.

“Señora Muñoz,” he said, struggling to flatten his voice.

“Oh,” Benson couldn’t help saying when she recognized the last name. 

“A second cousin of Alejandro’s father,” the elderly woman said. “My granddaughters say we need to be on Team Rafael.”

“Water under the bridge,” Barba said with a nervous laugh.

“Who’s this? Abuelita didn’t tell me you had a girlfriend. We never saw you bring any girls around since … well, since Yelina way back when.”

“Sergeant Olivia Benson, NYPD,” she said, starting to reach a hand out to the woman, but withdrawing when she realized that shaking Señora Muñoz’s hand might not be possible without sending Barba hurtling forward into the pew ahead of them.

“We’ve known each other fifty-seven years, Catalina and I. She always said, always, that you were smart — brilliante — even when you were all over the newspaper for what happened with Alejandro. Catalina wouldn’t let us say a bad word about you.” She turned her whole body to look at them. “Are you all right?” she asked, pointing to the shawl. “Tienes fiebre?”

“No,” Barba said. “I’ve had a long night. A long week.”

That was an acceptable answer for Señora Muñoz, so she turned back to face the pulpit. Barba, legitimately exhausted, rested his head on Benson’s shoulder.

“It’s okay,” she said softly.

Lucia and a few of Catalina’s friends were called up to read Biblical passages and prayers. Barba became wistful, a little distant, as the service wore on, but as the concluding hymn began, he smiled, half to himself. “I’m going to apply for a judicial appointment on Monday,” he whispered, nuzzling his forehead into her neck. 

“Good,” she whispered back.

—

In the back of Lucia’s car, Benson buckled herself in directly behind the driver, and Barba was (necessarily, once again) beside her. When they first sat, Barba’s glued hand and the top of Benson’s breast were exposed to the sunlight, so Lucia yanked the shawl out from behind them, then threw it across them like a blanket.

“Thank you, Mami,” Barba said, only to be met with an eye roll.

“I’m taking the two of you to Jacobi,” she said. “My friend’s daughter is a nurse in the ER. He texted her to let her know you’ll be coming in.”

“You told people about this?” Barba said.

“Just Jaime Rojas and his daughter.” Lucia started the car. “I can’t believe I’m driving my 45-year-old son and his girlfriend to the hospital because his hand is glued to her chest.”

“For the record, I’m not his girlfriend, per se,” Benson noted. “We just started this. And if I was his girlfriend, we’d have to disclose to the DA and the Chief of Police.”

“Technically not unless I were to take an unprosecutable or unethical case that your squad had investigated,” Barba told her.

“How about we get unglued first, and then we have the “what are we” conversation on our 24-hour anniversary?” 

Lucia, with her eyes on the road, was laughing.

“This is the first time I’ve laughed in days,” she said, “so I give you two and your — whatever it is you’ve done — credit.”

“Always glad to help,” Barba said.

They drove in silence for a while. Somewhere along Pelham Parkway, Barba, staring out the window with a phony-innocent expression on his face, began gently massaging her breast. She let out a sputtering laugh.

“No fooling around back there,” Lucia said.

By the time she pulled into the hospital’s parking lot, they were all laughing, stray tears running down their faces. 

In the ER, both the triage nurse and Yanisa Rojas, the ER nurse who was Lucia’s friend’s daughter, seemed not to entirely believe the true story of how Barba’s hand had become glued to Benson’s breast.

“What do you see here on a regular basis,” Barba asked, “that leads you to believe that this was not an accident? Do people glue themselves together on purpose?”

“We’ve seen worse,” Yanisa said. “We’ve seen people too embarrassed to come in for a full week.”

Lucia made a show of shutting her eyes tight and covering them with her hands while Yanisa applied an ointment and began to ease Barba’s fingers off of Benson’s breast with a pair of medical scissors. “You might lose a little bit of skin, Ms. Benson,” she said.

“It’s fine,” Benson said. “It’ll be the first scar I’ll be able to laugh about.”

“Probably won’t scar at all. It’s more like a scrape. Are you up to date on your tetanus shot?”

“I got the Tdap last year when I brought my son home.”

“Uh,” Barba said.

“You should get a booster, then,” Yanisa told him. “The full Tdap, in fact, if you’re around her son.”

Barba pouted.

“Just get the shot and thank God your hand didn’t get glued anywhere else,” Lucia said.

“We’ve seen that, too,” Yanisa said. “In fact, in my ten years working here, I’ve seen _that_ three separate times.”

“All right, I’ll get the shot,” Barba said.

“You’re free!” Yanisa announced, returning her scissors to the tray. “Hold tight, I’m going to get you bandages and some ointment to take home with you. Mr. Barba, you can go ahead and wash your hands, and I’ll come back with your Tdap booster.”

“Terrific,” Barba said, wriggling his fingers for the first time in almost a day.

Benson took out her phone. “Fourteen hours,” she said.

“What?”

“That’s how long we were stuck together. As soon as Yanisa’s done with the bandage, I’m going to call Lucy and tell her I’m on my way home.”

“Okay. Mami, do you need company tonight?”

“I don’t need anything,” Lucia said.

“I meant, do you want company? It’s been a hard week for us.”

“It has been, and the one thing that’s brought light to it — whatever scrapes and scratches it involved — was this. You should accompany Sergeant Benson home and finish whatever it was you were doing.”

“Mami,” Barba said, a blush creeping up his neck.

“Clearly you were doing something that needed to be finished.”

Barba cringed. “Mami!”

Benson was laughing by the time Yanisa returned with the bandages and ointment. “How about I drive you to the Fordham MetroNorth Station?” Lucia asked.

“Yes,” Benson and Barba said together, sheepishly.

—

“Pair of deuces,” Barba said, showing his hand to Benson.

“Pair of nothing.” Benson threw her cards down on the coffee table. “Would you like to do the honors?”

“Do you trust me to do the honors?” Barba asked.

“Show me your hands.”

After they’d come home, ordered dinner, cleaned up the rice that Noah had thrown around during that dinner, and put Noah to bed, they’d stripped down to what they’d been wearing almost 24 hours earlier in order to officially finish their game of strip poker. 

Barba held up his hands and wiggled his fingers. Benson squinted at them.

“No glue,” she said. “Your hands are huge.”

“So’s my … heart.” He smirked and crawled over to her on his hands and knees, sliding one bra strap down her shoulder, then reaching behind her to unhook the garment, which he slung around his neck.

“You can’t add clothing,” she complained. “That’s against the rules.”

He licked his lips and tossed the bra across the room.

“This is it,” she said, “for the win.”

“I’m ready.”

“I see that, clearly.”

She dealt them each five cards. He tossed out three cards and she tossed out two. When they drew the rest of their poker hands, Barba proudly showed off three 7s. 

“Damn it,” she said, “pair of 3s.”

“So,” Barba said, “I believe this means you lose.”

“Terrible sportsmanship, Barba.” She stood up from the floor and waited to see what he’d do next. “Are you going to take your winnings home, or what?” she prompted when he drew in a sharp breath. 

Barba rose to his knees and, as promised, hooked his teeth to the band of her underwear, slowly lowering them down to her ankles as she stepped out of them. He held them in his hand as he stared up at her, almost worshipful.

She flopped down on the couch and he tossed the underwear aside with her bra, then leaned in to kiss the inside of her thigh. She immediately spread her legs wider. 

After a lick and a kiss to her most sensitive spot, he grinned up at her. “You look good when you lose,” he said, returning to his ministrations, working her with his lips and tongue as she spread her legs further and further apart. 

She tangled her hands in his hair and tugged lightly. When he let out a grunt and whispered “yeah,” into her skin, she tugged a little harder. By the second time she came, he was moaning too.

“Okay, mercy, baby, mercy,” she said when he dove in for attempt number three. “Let’s go to the bedroom. You want me in your lap or over the side of the bed?”

A strangled sound came out of his throat and he wrapped his arms around her when she stood, pulling her flush against him. “In my lap,” he said. “I want to see you. I want —” He dipped his head and took a nipple in his mouth to show her exactly what he wanted.

“Okay, bedroom, bedroom,” she said, nudging him in that direction.

Past her shoulder, he could see the cards spread out on the coffee table.

“Liv,” he said.

“Come on, bedroom,” she groaned.

“Liv.” He kissed paths up and down her neck and across her collarbone. “Liv, sweetheart.”

“What?”

“I see your cards. You had a royal flush.”

“I did,” she admitted.

“You bluffed. You lied.”

“For a noble purpose.”

“Indeed,” he said, following her to the bedroom.


End file.
